Kerry warns Syria's Assad

The US has warned it will increase support for Syria's embattled opposition if President Bashar al-Assad spurns a US-Russian peace initiative in Geneva next month.

After a ''Friends of Syria'' meeting in Amman on Wednesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said if the international community did not unite to find a peaceful outcome to Syria's bloody conflict, it could spill into neighbouring countries and draw the region into sectarian conflict ''on a wider scale''.

''In the event that the Assad regime is unwilling to negotiate … we will also talk about our continued support and growing support for the opposition in order to permit them to continue to be able to fight for the freedom of their country,'' Mr Kerry said.

United: US Secretary of State John Kerry talks to British Foreign Secretary William Hague in Jordan. Photo: Reuters

Neither the Assad regime nor the opposition Syrian National Council has agreed to participate in next month's peace conference.

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Syria's ambassador to Jordan, Bahjat Suleiman, rejected the outcomes of the Friends of Syria meeting, saying none of the countries participating - including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, the US, Britain, France, Turkey, Germany and Italy - were friends of Damascus.

He said the meeting should be called ''Friends of Israel'', Xinhua news agency reported.

It appears the Syrian rebels are also a long way from supporting the Geneva initiative. Their Supreme Military Council commander, General Salim Idris, is insisting the US establish a ''strategic military balance'' between the rebels and the Assad regime as a precondition of any talks, according to Foreign Policy magazine.

In a letter to Mr Kerry obtained by Foreign Policy, General Idris welcomes the idea of a ''peaceful transition to a new government'' but says Syria continues to be ''fully sustained logistically and militarily by Russia and Iran''.

''Such untenable situation requires that the Unites States, as the leader of the free world, provide the Free Syrian Army forces under the Supreme Military Council with the requisite advanced weapons to sustain defensive military capabilities in the face of the Assad forces.''

Rebel commanders have called for reinforcements at the besieged city of Qusayr, near the Lebanese border, where regime forces have mounted a four-day attack that has cost hundreds of lives.

Raising concerns over further sectarian violence and ''foreign invaders'' from Hezbollah and Iran, the acting head of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, George Sabra, said: ''Everyone who has weapons or ammunition should send them to [Qusayr] and Homs to strengthen its resistance. Every bullet sent … will block the invasion that is trying to drag Syria back to the era of fear.''

Concerns over the number of Hezbollah fighters in combat in Syria were raised at the meeting.

''Just last week, obviously Hezbollah intervened very, very significantly,'' Mr Kerry said. ''There are several thousands of Hezbollah militia forces on the ground in Syria who are contributing to this violence … and it perpetuates the regime's campaign of terror against its own people.''

More than 80,000 people have been killed in the conflict, the United Nations estimates, and 1.5 million have fled Syria since the uprising began with peaceful protests in March 2011.